


Feelings to Hide

by raven_aorla



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Inspired by Art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 07:57:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_aorla/pseuds/raven_aorla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wanda Walter/Hottie/Becile had some very difficult years. Not my characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feelings to Hide

1955

Though his health was declining, Colonel Peter Walter III conscientiously maintained the various automatons he’d inherited as part of the Manor as long as he was still able to handle the tools necessary to do so. And Wanda, for her part, locked all her grief in a tight vault somewhere inside her (not unlike another, literal vault in the Manor itself) and took care of him while Peter IV was away with the Marines and she was fighting the courts to get Peter V back from the orphanage. Mark was gone and Judith had barely made it a year as an official part of the family. She needed to be the strong one.

1956

When Peter III made a bargain with Norman Becile to shelter him at the Manor in exchange for his testimony against Ignatius, Wanda thought she wouldn’t be able to stand even looking at the mutant who had contributed to the deaths of her husband and father, and the mysterious illness of her uncle.

But as monstrous and bizarre his body was now, there was a hesitant, repentant meekness to Norman that thawed her more than she ever expected. He'd apologized to Rabbit enough times that Rabbit was now willing to be cordial in his presence, kept the Spine company during the bouts of existential crises the titanium-alloy robot had become prone to as a side-effect of his new circuitry to better mimic human behavior (this often involved watching The Wizard of Oz enough times at absurd hours she was concerned the film reel might wear out), and did his best to alternately entertain and console mercurial little Three who seemed more lost than all of them in the absence of a Peter Walter at the helm. 

She overheard a conversation between them once with the golden top-hatted automaton perched on Norman's now-inhumanly broad shoulders, as Norman was cleaning out one of the fire places with his good hand in preparation for winter. "Hatchy doesn't talk to me anymore over the blue matter frequency, Doctor Norm."

"Just call me 'Norman'. I'm not a doctor anymore."

"Okay. Well, I think he's been without any water for a long enough time that even his core doesn't go enough for him to be awake. I think he's...what's that thing people do, not robut people but people-people, when they power down and it's not remembering because sometimes they remember things that didn't happen?"

"Dreaming."

"I think he's doing something like that. Is that good?"

"Maybe. I dunno. Could you jump off for a sec? I need to get at this grate."

"Okay."

Finally, finally she was permitted to bring Peter V home shortly before Christmas, and for good. He was a somber child in threadbare clothes. She and one of the robotic housemaids - lately they'd been having trouble keeping human ones, especially ones who would tolerate Norman - had made him a whole new wardrobe and she hoped he would like it. She'd been permitted to visit him over the years but this was the first time he was seeing the mansion since he was four. 

"You have to remember, Petey, that Uncle Norman might look scary but he will be kind to you and never hurt you on purpose," she said, driving the car slowly as she could get away with because it would be just like fate to make her crash now of all possible times and with all possible passengers. "If he does something by accident tell him and me and we'll fix it and make sure it doesn't happen again."

Petey nodded. "I remember there were metal men who sing."

"Yes. They're going to play songs for you. Won't that be nice?"

"Yeah." Petey looked out the window with wide eyes. "Is that the house?"

"Not that one. It's a little further."

"They don't play music much at the Home for Boys. Hymns on Sunday and a little radio on Saturday nights if Matron remembers."

"The robots will be happy to play music when they have time and you ask politely. They might have to go away for awhile because the government needs their help for things, just like your uncle Peter who you're named after, but they'll come back. And your uncle Peter's going to visit when he can, and some of the money he sends us from his work is going to make us able to hire tutors to teach you how to fix the robots when they need that."

"Who fixes them now? You?"

Wanda sighed. "I'm better at fixing people than machines. Norman used to be good at fixing machines but his hands don't work so well and he doesn't remember everything he did. They fix each other when it's something little. There's an engineer we're friends with, Mr. Burnette, who does bigger jobs sometimes. He has a daughter about your age named Annie. You might enjoy playing with her."

"Ew. Girls are gross."

"Your father said that to me when he was your age. Okay, here we are."

She was surprised when Peter V flung open the car door and ran towards the Manor like it was some sort of promised land, but it was one of the few pleasant surprises she'd had in a long time.

1962

The Spine joined Wanda on one of the memorial benches in the family cemetery. "Hello, Miss Wanda."

She tucked her jacket closer to her. She was getting thin these days, and even though San Diego rarely got chilly enough for even a frost she always seem to feel cold. "Hi, the Spine."

"Is it okay if I put an arm around you?"

"Go ahead. Norman's still going through..." _my little brother's,_ "...Four's personal belongings with Petey and they're deciding what to keep?"

Of all the robots, the Spine was best at modulating how much force he exerted at a given time in order to do things like hug and shake hands without occasionally causing injury. She could even pretend it was Guy's arm, sometimes, if she tried hard enough. "Last time I checked. I finally convinced Rabbit to power down after he'd been going for more than forty-eight hours and was close to falling apart. Three is running around in circles in the nude but he doesn't seem to be hurting anyone or anything so I let him be."

"I feel so cold. Like all the fire got used up with him."

The Spine huffed steam in an approximation of a sigh. "Everything's been harder since we lost the Grandmaster."

"Everything's been harder since always."

They gazed at the headstone for a while. Instead of flowers, Peter V had fashioned a bunch of little toy rockets and space shuttles to perch on the granite slab and nestle in the grass around it. Norman had gotten upset when one of his lobster claws snipped a delicate part of one of these miniatures, but everyone reassured him it was fine.

1963

"Norman?"

"Yeah, Wanda?"

"I made you a new oven mitt."

"Oh, thanks! It's...wow, that's the nicest one you've given me. It's practically black-tie."

"I want to talk to you about something."

"I thought that's what we were doing."

"I guess. Well, I  - I'm not getting any older."

"I thought the phrase was 'younger', but I know I'm not smart like I was."

"No, I mean I'm literally not getting any older. It's been becoming more and more obvious. I think the blue matter exposure my brothers and I got when we were children, combined with me spending all this time with you and Uncle III so soon after the explosion - well, I'm not getting any older. And you look exactly like you did when you first came here."

"Huh. I'll take your word for it. I don't like mirrors."

"Will you marry me?"

"...Are you serious?"

"Sort of an elopement without going anywhere. Just you and me and a judge."

"Why?"

"I'm done with losing people. I have had so much enough of it you can't even begin to believe how much I am done. Besides, if it turns out you're not getting any older either I want you to have legal standing here just in case one of the Peter Numerals ever gets it in his head to try to kick you out."

"Gosh. I mean, sure. Yeah."

"I'll have Rabbit give me away. Seems right."

"Yeah. This is neat."

"Yeah, it is."

1973

Peter V lost his eyes in his efforts to rebuild Rabbit, the Spine, and Three-who-was-now-called-the-Jon, but once he had established that he could somehow still see and didn't appear to be dying, he brushed off Wanda's fussing and even Annie's concern and locked himself into the laboratory until everyone was in one piece again.

"I'm going to rewrite their programming so they're pacifists," he growled when Wanda threatened to have Norman chop the door down with an axe. "So no one can ever, ever, EVER make them get hurt like this again. No one."

1986

"Aunt Wanda?"

"Yeah, Peter?"

"You know how Mrs. Burnette said she wouldn't stand for Annie marrying me because I was a deformed lunatic, no matter how fond her late husband had been of me and our 'freakshow'?"

"It's sort of difficult to forget."

"Annie figured out a way around that."

"Oh?"

"She's just about to tell her mother that she's going to have my baby so she'd better consent to us marrying before she starts to show and ruins the family's reputation."

"Annie's a clever girl, but I never thought she'd outright lie to get what she wants."

"She's not lying."

"...Oh."

"We'll name him Peter VI if its a boy. And Wanda II if not."

This time, at long last, Wanda let a Peter Walter see her tears, and she felt the vault in her heart begin to unlock.


End file.
